I'm forever blowing bubbles...

Hels' Sunday Stamper challenge this week is based on the song "I'm forever blowing bubbles" which I know as West Ham's club song. Then I saw on a tweet by Suze Weinberg that today is National Bubble Wrap day. (in the US presumably as I've not heard of it here!) Why would you have a Bubble Wrap day???

I decided to use bubble wrap as my method rather than the theme. I made a background on an A4 sheet - using Fresco paints Inky Pool, Sky and London Night.   I had two sizes of bubbles!!

I also spritzed it with blue patina perfect pearls spray.

I also used a tag to mop up the spare paint from my craft sheet, adding some snowcap white.  I used some sequin waste on both the tag and the A4 sheet, and chipped sapphire DI.

I cut part of the A4 sheet using the Tattered Floral die and made some flowers, and punched a few little daisies with the offcuts leftover.

The background on this card is Wendy's bubble stamp, the sentiment one of Tim's.

I used the other flower on the tag.

Best of all is I've still got a large piece of the bubble wrapped paper to use for something else - it's going on the scraps pile!!

Time...

Hope you're all having a good Sunday. I have been (am still) glued to the tennis for the Australian Open final - what a fabulous match! They've been playing over 5 hours and I'm exhausted just watching.... looks like it won't be Nadal's day though...

Anyhow, I started these pages in my journal yesterday during the football and finished it off today..

Covered the pages with the clock page from Tim's Lost and Found stack - embedded some natural hemp into the page and painted over it  - inked, stencilled and stamped over the pages.

Used a mixture of distress inks & Paperartsy Fresco paints.

The little clocks (also from the Lost and Found stack) are covered in crackle accents glue but you can't see it very well.

I did have trouble photographing this, even in the daylight.

The Eyes Have it...

Well the candy picture in the side bar says it - Hels' Sunday Stampers challenge is 4 years old.  Couldn't let this go without passing, and the theme is "eyes" or faces - but it's Saturday morning and I'm nearly out of time...  what to do.... hmmm

I read a lot - all the time (when I'm not blog-hopping or crafting or twitting!) so I made a bookmark. 

Took a piece of glossy card stock and coloured it with distress ink (evergreen bough) and some Wendy stamps. Yes of course I meant to stamp the letters at the bottom upside down... Used some gel pens to accent the eyes and lips but they don't show up, and some spun sugar (DI) for blusher...

I like to keep my books neat and tidy (hence the bookmark - don't let me catch anyone turning the corners of MY books down...) so I don't like anything bulky on my bookmarks. And it's quicker that way... lol!
You have till 9pm UK time tonight to enter - and she has some great candy on offer to one lucky winner. Thanks Hels' for the challenges, love them!

Now, my new Craft Stamper has just fallen through the letterbox so I must go..!

On the way to our dreams

I liked the effect of the blue stripes in the previous journal page so I had another go - this time I used mustard seed and wild honey distress stains.

I stmaped Tim Holtz's small Rock Star heart randomly in black archival across the pages, and the sentiment  in butterscotch . 

Many many months ago, I stamped the same stamp on some sticky back canvas that I had die cut and then not known what to do with!  I came across it the other day when rummaging through the scraps box.  The colours are perfect for this page.





I stamped another sentiment (also Tim Holtz) on some manilla card stock, coloured it with wild honey, edging it with gathered twigs from the autumn limited edition set) and cut it into pieces to stick across the pages.

Finally I coloured the hearts & banners with the fab fab fab portfolio pastels (yellow, yellow orange and golden brown) and heat set them.

I've got the whole weekend to play (football apart) - chores be blowed - so hope to have some more fun!

Dragons Dream- Tag it On - we're back!!

Yes, Dragons Dream Tag it On Challenges are back - refreshed and raring to go! Did you miss us?!

This time for our challenge themes we're taking favourite book titles as our theme and my teamie Elizabeth has chosen "The Beach".

That immediately said "Stampscapes" to me - I have a few.... and this is the result.

Inks are all Distress inks and all stamps are Stampscapes. Hope you all get to play along with us again.

WOYWW 138

I am beginning to think someone doesn't want me to write my WOYWW posts recently- I got home from work on Tuesday to find there'd been a power cut and had to re-set various clocks/radios/timers etc and then came to turn on the computer - nothing, nada zilch.... the base unit was ok, but the screen - nope. 

Fiddled around, turned it off and on again, (you know, the old IT failsafe...) eventually tried the leads to make sure they were ok -bingo! finally found the lead to the screen was slightly loose - now, how can that be, I didn't do anything different last night when I turned it off to go to bed, but today - it just fell out all by itself... anyhow at least it's ok and I don't have to buy a new one!!!

So, you're probably here to see my workdesk today.  Well, I'm still in a journalling mood at the moment, or at least working in the book I call my journal - I don't do any baring my soul stuff .... so this is the latest page in progress on the floor.... waiting for something to strike me to finish it off.


Inks are distress stains in tumbled glass, faded jeans broken china and picket fence. stamps are by Dina Wakley (I love them, and need/want some more....) You can see them just to the right of the craft mat. Behind the journal is my latest favourite - portfolio pastels - they are fantastic - water soluble oil pastels. They actually arrived last Wednesday but way after I'd WOYWW'd!

OOh, look what happened in the close up. Still needs some tweaking though...



Now, I wouldn't be "stampingbyh" if I didn't have something (else) new to show....


On Saturday I was looking for some spraybottles (failed) to use for some watered down paint to spray on the journal - but I did find these cool frames and foam sheets, in the £1 shop.
I'd have preferred lighter coloured foam really and I am not totally sure what I'll use it for... but the frames are great.  They look all nice and distressed before I even start distressing them!

I also bought this storage box - meaning to use it for my Tim Holtz idea-ology but at present I can't bear to decant it all from its packets to put in here so it's still empty.  Not sure why I like having them in the packets, they take up more space than I have.... check back next week to see if I've taken the plunge!

Anyhow, have a good Wednesday and I'll get round as many of you as I can.

Collage pages - Tim style

In between the football, Call the Midwife and before Birdsong today, I found time to do a double page collage in my journal. (wanted to use up some scraps from the overflowing pile!)

Stamps are by Tim Holtz apart from 'time' which is a Claritystamp.

This is what it looked like before I started.

I only used papers in the scrap pile, but it's still overflowing...

Journalling

Had a play in the journal tonight - a mixture of paints, inks, shimmer and pastels on the page and this and that on top!

It was fun....

Portfolios - addicted already!

Well, I rushed home again today and started playing even whilst the dinner was cooking itself....  Went with another tag based on Leandra's tutorials, and one I made up as I went along....

 This is one of my favourite ever Hot Pick stamps, I just love it. Sealed the whole tag with Fesco Satin Glaze after stamping and added a ribbon - which I coloured with the pastels too, just to see if it would! and some pearls.

Couldn't get a decent photo of this one!  Used various brown shades of the pastels, only lightly blending them, masing with violet and the harlequin mask from Crafters Workshop and added some orange pan pastel (from my very limited, so far, supply!) The stamp is by Dina Wakley.  A spritz of perfect copper perfect pearl spray (doesn't show up, told you it wasn't a good picture!) AND the flash is bouncing off the new craft mat (from Jennie's blog candy from yesterday)

A good mail day!

WOW!! I got home tonight to find a card from the Royal Mail - two parcels - but rather than me having to go and collect them from the sorting office - they had left them in one of the wheelie bins - luckily it's not recycling day!! And here they are:

 Oooh,, what's in there??!

 My blog candy win from Jennie (The Artistic Stamper) - I was lucky enough to win her birthday candy - and what candy!! Thanks Jennie it's amazing... (click to enlarge for a bette view)

and these babies - you've probably seen Leandra using them here so I had to grab a quick dinner (gave up part way through, I was too keen tp play..)  OH my GOSH they are fantastic.................

Now this is my first attempt with any kind of pastels - and following Leandra's tutorial - fairly closely! this is what I managed.  Leandra, you are right, they are SOFT!!!   Obviously I need to play more, and this took only as long as a cup of tea took to go stone cold.... but I likey, I likey.  I do need some more stencils - this was the bubbles from the fish template!

Now off to do something with that tag from yesterday!

WOYWW 137 nearly didn't happen!

Hi again! Well, it's Tuesday night as I write this and as the title suggests, it nearly didn't, thanks to the non-broadband connection when i got home from work!  Tried ringing the helpline "all lines are busy, please try later".... grrr! Not even a recorded message.

Fortunately after a couple of hours the service came back so here I am...

So, workdesks then?  Well, I've been doing bits and pieces this week, you may have seen some of them here and here.  But tonight, this is my workspace:

some desk calendars that were sent to the office by one of the life assurance companies - the bottom of the pages have a fabulous embossed texture to them that don't show up no matter how hard I try! - not sure if it's supposed to be random or a proper design - and I was going to throw them out, but thought I could do something with them - even if I just use the patterns on something. (thinking chalk or pan pastels.....)

And a couple of tags (for a change, lol!)

This one is finished, (though I think I may add some ribbons or fibres) - I used some new (to me) stamps by Wendy Vecchi and some perfect pearls for shimmer.

This is a throw-away - I really like the background - watered down paperartsy paints and then sanded - it gives such a smoooooth finish I love it!!  but I don't like the stamping on top now!!  Maybe I'll paint over it and start again (I am running low on tags!)

I won't be able to visit many of you till later tomorrow as I have a busy day ahead of me. Work is still - work - but at least I've had December's salary now...... nuff said!!!

Have you seen the fab new logo designs Julia (and her sister) have come up with for WOYWW - aren't they fab! Check her post here for info and here for the best blog hop in the world.

Messing about in my journal

I decided that rather than just slobbing out in front of the tv tonight, I would do some more in my journal - this time I went with this page I used to mop up the spare paint the other day and using a dry brush added some more of the paperartsy paints.....

turned it into this. The leaf is from my one and only set of Dylusions stamps and I coloured it with my 3 pan pastels... which are luckily green! (need some more of these...)

The stamp in the middle is from a Tim Holtz set I'd not used before, and I cut out some of the words to layer up.


You will see that I even wrote on this page!!!!!  (I used india ink - I bought a bottle from The Works before Christmas - don't have a quill pen so I used the end of a cuticle stick I "rescued" from Mum's house when we were down at Christmas doing some of that decorating/clearing out.... well it's the right sort of shape!!

One day I'd like to take calligraphy lessons....! I was only doing this for fun, but I realised belatedly that today's Simon Says Stamp and Show theme is "anything but a card" so I'm entering it for this!  As always there is a fab prize up for grabs.

Sunday Stampers - Gold!

Trying to put my work worries to the back of my mind today and got inky instead! Wanted to enter Hels' Sunday Stampers challenge as I've missed a few recently!  Her theme this week, is Gold.

Yesterday I was playing with Paperartsy paints again and the masking tape technique Lin shared recently and made this tag

Now, there's no gold there, you are saying!  Well, true but once again I mopped up the spare paint from my craft mat onto a journal page.....

added some masking

and some stamping - Wendy Vecchi stamps (a new - to me - set I treated myself to before Christmas and needed inking up!) - aahh, here's the gold!
So, it's a bit contrived but it is gold!

Now, I've got a question - this is my pot of multi-medium - does it always go dried out/thick and gungy like this?  Have I been storing it wrong?  It's not been in full sun or anything.... is it just old?

(thanks for the comments - there isn't much left in the pot, so it could just be drying out. but yes, the lid has been tight on)

WOYWW 136 - WIP

Here we are again - Wednesday already! Doesn't Christmas seem a long time ago?!  I am kind of back in the swing of working again, although feeling very discombobulated at present. Won't go into details here (yet) as I need to do some serious thinking.....

My very dirty craft sheet on the floor (must get out the new one out, one day!) this week shows a work in progress (depending on how much I get done before I have to hit "post" for this week's What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) - the brainchild of Julia - and comes courtesy of Lin's inspiration the other day here - don't you just LOVE her tags? - and Paperartsy Fresco paint - which I adore!!

I couldn't wait to have a go.... my masking tape is old, and of the low tack variety so I hope it's going to work...

 The texture doesn't really show up much, but these are the colours of paint I used (and later added some honey dew as well)

I decided to stamp straight onto the tag and used a couple of Dina Wakley stamps - Lonely Girl is stamped in coffee archival, the blobs are with distress inks. The text is from Wendy Vecchi.

Lin, it's a great technique and one I shall practice!

I mopped up the surplus paint with a page in my journal - another WIP!




The clear out hasn't continued much either - had a very lazy weekend - but I did fill another black sack with some more old videos for the rubbish... slowly, slowly, catchee monkey as they say!  Maybe I'll get some more done this weekend!

Hope to get round as many of your desks or other creative spaces as I can this week - managed a bit better last week!

Grungy Monday 31 - Happy Birthday Tim!

Today is Tim's birthday and Linda from Studio L3 has for Grungy Monday set us a challenge to make Tim a birthday card.....

I haven't felt at all crafty since Christmas, but I had to give this one a go. Happy Birthday, Tim! Hope it's a good one.

I used paper from the Retro Grunge stack, knocked back with picket fence distress stain, and my favrourite Umbrella Man die and the large rosette.

It was also my brother's birthday yesterday and this is his card (Paperartsy paper this time!)   Hope you had a good one too! I was feeling totally uninspired when I made this, sorry Rich!



WOYWW 135 - Happy New Year

So, all that preparation and it's over in a flash! Happy New Year, the first Wednesday of 2012 finds us all back at Julia's checking out the desks of the world again. Sorry I didn't get to many of you last week, you may have seen I was away decorating at my Mum's house - it's going to be a long job but we did quite well for 3 days hard - very hard - work!!  My sister in law took some pictures but I don't have them yet. (hint hint, if you're reading this!)

So I can show you my floor today -

Some up-cycling from Christmas - the ribbons/berries are from the crackers, the scallop shells were part of our Christmas dinner starter, the corks - well you can guess! and the tins and boxes are from Mum's sewing box that we cleared out whilst we were there - buttons and bits and bobs which I will be "filing" into my stash - soon....

In the background is my Christmas pressie from Richard and Lynne (brother and sister-in-law)  - some new Tim stamps - just need it to be Christmas time to use them now!!

We were down at Mum's house for 3 days and got her bedroom stripped - of furniture to start with - then the wallpaper off the walls (the whole house is covered in wood chip wallpaper, what hard work that was and will continue to be!) then we had to wash the walls & ceiling and start the painting - got one coat done so far....  there's a long way to go but not a bad start!
You may also be amazed to hear that since I got back I have done some clearing out HERE too.... need to get rid of a lot of old tat - so made a start at the weekend, took one sack of clothes to the charity shop and threw out a load of old videos that I can no longer watch and a huge pile of magazines - not crafting ones, obviously!  2012 is my de-clutter year.... and that's the closest I will get to a New Year's Resolution.  Not setting a timescale either - but if it gets to a stage where you would notice the difference, I'll show you!

Anyhow, I have rambled on longer than I intended. I have to get my brother's birthday card made - he's hitting 50 on Friday!!
Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a good week.